David McCarthy: How can the Government ignore Frank Kopel widows' campaign after 50,000 fans united to back it?

Dundee United fans’ tribute to Frank Kopel during the minute’s applause

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FRANK KOPEL’S widow shared the disappointment of every Dundee United fan at the result of Sunday’s League Cup Final.

Defeat is never an easy pill to swallow. But Amanda Kopel will have left Hampden believing she had gained a victory more important than the silverware handed out by Rod Stewart at the end.

She will have made the journey home hoping that a very public campaign she has fronted in her husband’s name is at long last receiving the publicity it deserves.

Frank’s Law, she calls it, and she wants the Scottish Government to recognise the impact, both financial and emotional, that dementia has on the families of those who are afflicted by this terrible degenerative condition. In particular, Amanda wants the law changed to enable sufferers under the age of 65 to have free personal care.

Frank was only 59 when diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s in 2009 and as his condition deteriorated, his family had to pay more than £400 each month for the professional help he needed.

In the third minute of the League Cup Final, the sea of Tangerine that was the Dundee United end started applauding.

That was to be expected, as social media had been full of messages in the run-up to the game urging supporters to mark the third minute - Kopel wore the No.3 jersey more than 400 times for the club – by clapping long and loud.

They delivered. What Amanda could not have expected was the response from the Celtic support. To a man, woman and child they joined in. And at the end of the 60 seconds, Hampden roared.

A message had been delivered to the politicians in the name of man who is no longer here to fight his fight, and from his indefatigable widow who is determined to see this campaign through in the name of her husband, even if it too late for Frank and his family to benefit from it. Kopel was the very definition of the word ‘stalwart’ as a player.

The Falkirk-born left-back was talented enough to be plucked from school by Matt Busby and his early years were spent playing and training with the likes of George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law.

He didn’t break through at Old Trafford but played 12 first-team games and was in the travelling party that went to Wembley for the 1968 European Cup Final, although in those days the only substitute allowed was for the goalkeepers, so he was not to get a medal.

However, an excellent article in the Scotsman last year outlined the devotion and determination his wife Amanda, a girl who grew up in the same Falkirk street as the man she went on to marry, had to win this campaign for a fairer deal to be given to families of dementia sufferers.

She spoke of how she would bring out video footage of Frank’s greatest goal, a piledriver against Anderlecht that took United through a UEFA Cup tie on the away goals rule in 1979.

In the early stages of his illness, she said, Frank would smile at the memory. As his dementia worsened, he would only look blankly at the screen.

He had forgotten how good a footballer he was. Worse than that, he had forgotten who he was.

The families of every dementia sufferer – and 800,000 people in Britain have the disease – will understand how Amanda felt as she continued to care for and love her husband until he died.

She won’t stop campaigning just because he has gone. There are too many other people still suffering and while she can do nothing to relieve their heartache, if Frank's Law is passed, the financial hardship will ease dramatically.

Before her husband’s death, she said: “What I’m trying to do is not going to help Frankie but, if it benefits other people by making their quality of life that bit better, it will have been worth it.”